Bridge Deal of the Week (August 09 2017)

Problem

The Auction:

West

North

East

South

1♦

Pass

1♥

Pass

2♣

Pass

2♠!

Pass

2NT

Pass

3NT

Pass

4NT

Pass

5♥

Pass

6♣

South’s opening bid was 1♦. North responded with 1♥. South bid 2♣ and North 2♠ (4th Suit Forcing to Game). South bid 2NT, North raised to 3NT. South asked for aces and after North responded 5♥ – South declared 6♣

West has led the ♥4.

Can you help South – how to find a way to 12 tricks?

Contract:6♣ by South

Vulnerable: North/South

Solution

Although it is tempting to play a small heart from dummy and hope that West has underled the king and thus your ♥Q may win the trick, it is too dangerous. You cannot risk losing the first trick, as you miss the ♠A too.

You take the first trick with dummy’s ♥A (trick 1). Now you have two vulnerable suits – hearts and spades. But you have a 9-card suit of diamonds, which offers the possibility to discard the singleton spade from dummy – after you have pulled trumps.

You play the ♦K from dummy and then the ♦J, East covers; you take the trick with the ♦A (tricks 2, 3). Your diamonds are winners now.

Next you lead the ♣K, then the ♣Q and ♣J (tricks 4, 5, 6). Now you can lead the ♦7, but you take this trick with dummy’s ♦10 – as you don’t want to be caught in dummy with no way to return (trick 7).

Then you lead the ♦2 from dummy, win the trick with your ♦8 and lead the ♦9 discarding a spade from dummy (tricks 8, 9). West discards a spade and two hearts, so does East.

The opponents have only the ♥K left. You lead the ♥Q, East wins the trick with the ♥K – so the king was offside – and leads the ♠J (trick 10).

You duck and ruff with dummy’s ♣A. You still hold one club and dummy’s hearts have been promoted to winners now, so you can lead the ♥10 from dummy ditching your ♠K and then the ♥9 (tricks 12, 13).

♠ 8

♥ A1096

♦ KJ102

♣ A865

♠ AQ10654

♠ J972

♥ 874

♥ K532

♦ 64

♦ Q3

♣ 102

♣ 943

♠ K3

♥ QJ

♦A9875

♣ KQJ7

South and North had five tricks in diamonds, four in clubs and three in hearts. The problem was – to promote the hearts into winners, one trick had to be given up to East. If the opponents had taken a trick with the ♠A before South gained lead and thus control, the contract would go down.

But South became the declarer and West had the opening lead. West – who held the ♠AQ – didn’t want to lead away from tenace and chose hearts instead, saving South.

If 6♣ were played by North, East would have probably led a small spade and after that there would have been no way to avoid losing two tricks and going down.